Introduction

Good morning to you! Please grab you bibles and go ahead and turn to the book of Hebrews. We are going to finish out chapter 5 this morning, covering verses 11-14. We are preparing our hearts to enter into one of the most feared and perhaps misunderstood sections in the new testament which is this section on the warning against apostasy. I am excited to have the opportunity, God willing, to offer us clarity on that passage and to see the hope and encouragement that it really brings. I am hoping we can get there next week but I haven’t figured out how I am going to divide up chapter six, as there are several ways it can be addressed. Say a prayer for me this week as I prepare, that the Lord would guide me to the best and clearest way. We have to get there, though by way of our passage this week.

The theme of our sermon this morning is the mature Christian or maybe we could say growing up to spiritual maturity. I think and I hope that we all desire spiritual maturity so we will being to look at what that looks like and what it doesn’t look like. I pray we will also see how God’s word and more specifically, how his deep gospel truths grow us to that maturity. As always, I pray it pleases the Lord to reveal himself to us in a powerful way this morning. Stand with me once more as we read our text for today.

​Hebrews 5:11–14ESV

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

‌The Dull Christian

Several of us have talked about this before but to say that many in the church have become dull of hearing would perhaps be an understatement. I saw this past Christmas that Dream City Church in Phoenix did a Grinch themed service where the entire service was basically an exegesis of the Grinch, illustrating him as Herod and his attempts to steal Christmas. If upon me saying that you thought, “Ya, that actually sounds interesting,” then I have a word for you this morning.

I have seen Superbowl themed services, Marvel movie themed Easter services where Iron-man died on the cross, and even a Die-Hard themed Christmas services. Why are such blasphemous services even thought about much less followed through with? Because the church has become dull of hearing. As the writer of Hebrews is quite literally in the middle of a point, one that we began last week, about the priestly office of Christ he feels the need to pause here to chastise his listeners. His intent, as he clearly says, was to continue his exposition of and comparison between Christ and Melchizedek expounding more fully on the nature of Christ as our priest forever and he will continue that thought in chapter 7, but he felt the need to stop and remind of the dangers of spiritual immaturity.

He was going to begin to draw out this illustration of Melchizedek as a type of Christ in that Melchizedek had (as far as what is revealed to us in scripture) no father or mother, no genealogy, no beginning of life or end of days and in doing that he would need to dig deep into the typological aspects of scripture, and draw out these rich metaphors. However, when such an exercise is done by the immature (or dull) and given to the immature you will inevitably end up with a Grinch themed Christmas service.

Spurgeon mentions that sluggishness as it relates to scriptures and the laziness among the hearers leads men to take something like the doctrine of the trinity, for instance, and equate it to all manner of silly things in an attempt to dumb it down for an even duller audience. To that point Spurgeon says this,

The strong meat of allegory must be for half-inspired saints like John Bunyan, and those masters in Israel who are not to be carried away upon the back of every figure, but who can ride their figures like good horsemen, with a bit in the mouth of the allegory, and make it keep in a straight road and bear them safely on to their destination.

Dull men, speak in dull allegory, because they assume all their people are as dull as they are, and we are all dumber for it. There is a proper way to use allegory, metaphor and various illustrations and we will get to the full depths of that when we get to chapter 7 and beyond but to get there we must pause, as the writer of Hebrews has paused, and hear the warning. As many commentators have pointed out, its actually the warning that comes next in chapter 6, but before we get there, he sufficiently shames the reader, then warns them. Don’t let it discourage you though because as I mentioned he does also encourage and assure the reader, but we have to get real first church.

If we want to get to the meat that this glorious word and gospel has for us, full of these deep, rich truths that stir us right down to our souls, we have to grow up beyond the dullness and sluggishness of our ways.

Our text begins then by telling us that the truths that are to come in the latter half of this letter, even some in the next chapter, and certainly much of the deep truths of scripture are hard to explain. We need to full unpack what that means that these truths are hard to explain. To do that let me point your attention to a couple verses.

​1 Corinthians 2:14ESV

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Far too often when we get too difficult passages in scripture or have difficult truths given to us, we might scratch our heads or rub our heads because we now have a headache and just reject them, dismiss them, or ignore them because they are too hard to explain. The issue though, that is being addressed here is not one intellectual dullness as though the reader isn’t smart enough, but rather through supporting verses like the one we just read in 1 Corinthians, we see that the issue is spiritual dullness.

Certainly yes, spiritual dullness can lead to intellectual dullness but the issue at hand for the dull Christian is a spiritual one. Things are hard to explain because we are too often spiritually lazy, and we get Grinch service because that’s easier than having our discernment sharpened and honed by the power of the spirit. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the word, feeling like it’s too much or that you aren’t smart enough to understand it, let me assure you this morning that you are indeed not smart enough to understand it. No one is but to let that be the end of it, is by definition allowing yourself to be a dull (lazy), immature Christian.

Why? Because these are not intellectual matters, but spiritual ones and it is not human wisdom that you need but spiritual discernment.

​1 Corinthians 2:13ESV

And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

Sadly, because of insecurities about our own intellectual prowess, lack of trust in the power of the spirit to impart his truth to us, and laziness to discipline ourselves for spiritual maturity we stay as dull Christians and begin to believe that the tired metaphor or cheap entertainment is actually good for us.

‌The Immature Christian

​Hebrews 5:12ESV

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,

We will talk next week about those basic principles that the church doesn’t need to keep going over but the emphasis here is not necessarily that they don’t desire solid food and have a preference for milk, though that may also be true, but that such basic principles are all they can handle (digest) because that haven’t matured beyond them to actually know what to do with the richer truths of God’s words.

Sinclair Ferguson has a great illustration he used with regards to this text, and I am going to steal it. I think we have all experience this on Christmas morning either in our own young kids or family, where we present a one-year-old with a gift. After struggling with them a bit to open it we smile and say something like, “Oh, look what you got!” They proceed to pay no attention to the gift and instead crumple up the paper or stare at the ribbon that was tied around the package. Everyone laughs and I come in from the kitchen and say something cringe like, “looks like he likes the wrapping more than the gift.”

We all chuckle and it’s cute when they are one. Such behavior is expected from a one-year-old, cute even. But as a child gets older there comes a time when if year after year, they ignore the gift and play with wrapping, in frustration we may say to them, “Who cares about the wrapping, look at the gift!” Such is the case for the immature Christian, they are spiritually still a one year and you can go to all the trouble in the world to prepare for them that 24-ounce tomahawk with garlic butter but if you set that in front of them, they won’t even know what to do with it. They need milk, not solid food. They haven’t grown up. As such the prize is of little value, only the trappings and trimmings.

The implication here is that no Christian is called to spiritual immaturity. Let me preface this by saying that everyone comes to Christ at a specific point in their life and that point comes at drastically different seasons and times of life. To expect that someone becomes a theologian the second they are saved by Christ or ever for that matter is silly. This is also why I take slight issue with the late R.C. Sproul’s book title “Everyone’s a Theologian”. Not in the content itself as this sermon, in some ways, briefly summarizes some of the same things but in the fact that I don’t think everyone should be a theologian in the true sense of the word.

I don’t think every Christian should desire to be able to articulate the differences between supra and infra-lapsarianism or to wax poetically about pre-trib dispensationalism vs post-millenniumism. In my estimation, such things would be required of someone who calls themselves a theologian. So, to say everyone’s a theologian is to reduce the definition to something less than the full extent of the word to allow others to fall under its umbrella.

Rather what we should do is elevate and uphold the true meaning of a word and delight in simply being the thing we are called to be. So to deeply know the truth of God’s word and to be able to articulate and even to teach the pure gospel, to uphold the foundational aspects of faith and salvation, to feast heartily on the deep doctrinal riches of God’s word and to know and delight in this incredible gift that has given you doesn’t make you a mediocre theologian it makes you a mature Christian.

Consider Paul and his letter to the Galatians. The church in Galatia was quickly moving to another gospel, not that there is one, (to use Paul’s words) because they were being deceived in large part because they were immature Christians. Paul says to them,

Galatians 1:6

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—”

He then goes on for 6 chapters about salvation by faith alone, not by works, the righteousness given to us by faith, the distinction between the law and the gospel, our sonship in Christ, our freedom in him, walking by the spirit, and our call to Christian community. To which the Galatians certainly did not reply, “Hey Paul, settle down we aren’t theologians.” Because knowing such things, being able to articulate such things, holding to such things doesn’t make you a theologian, it makes you a mature Christian.

Necessarily then, not knowing them, makes you an immature Christian and immature Christians will quickly desert him who called you in the grace of Christ. So, the point then in emphasizing this is not to push you to fill your minds (or your stomachs to keep the metaphor) with knowledge or doctrinal truth to make your brain full or stomach fat but rather spiritual maturity is concerned with persevering faith. This becomes even more clear in chapter 6 with the specific warnings and encouragements that he offers.

We grow up in Christ because in maturity we treasure the gift and in treasuring the gift we will never lose sight of the great giver of these gifts.

‌The Healthy Christian

We have talked several times now in morning bible study about Christian liberty and in that conversation, Stephen has rightly pointed out that our Christian liberty extends to our dietary preference. Meaning you are perfectly free in Christ to be a vegetarian, or to eat only meat, or to drink only milk, or to live off locusts and honey. From a health standpoint, I might advise against some of that, but I am not going to bind your conscience to eat in a particular way.

Spiritually speaking though, I can and must bind your conscience to say, meat is required. Yes, I know, before you even say it, “Well what is meat exactly, how do I know if I am eating meat, what do I do if I am not?” There is a degree of nuance here and because we are speaking metaphorically and I am not actually giving you a steak to digest, we do need to be careful and thoughtful. That being said, we are all called to be mature Christians, that is healthy Christians and according to God’s word, healthy Christians digest meat.

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​Hebrews 5:14ESV

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

In context of the motivation of this letter and in context of what the author to the Hebrews paused on to make this clarification we can deduce then that at the very least this solid food that is for the mature is the clear understanding of Christ’s priesthood over and against the Levitical priesthood. I think we could make the argument from places like Galatians that perhaps there is a fuller plate of solid food for us but at least we need to dig into and know well what it means that Christ is our priest.

I am not going to get into the specifics of the meat this week because we will get to that in chapter 7 but rather in preparation for that, and in keeping in step with text I want to again reemphasize the outcome or aim of this maturity. We already know that maturity is concerned with persevering faith but more specifically this solid food is about refining our palates to clearly distinguish for that which is good and that is evil. Or that which is of God and that which is not.

The enemy and deception can be very subtle at times and only those mature Christians who have had their powers of discernment refined through a steady and constant diet of this solid food will have the means to distinguish good from evil. This is the real danger in the Grinch Christmas or any other continued emphasis that is shallow and immature, the Christian’s discernment growth is stunted, and they are much more easily deceived because they are much less able to distinguish good from evil.

In the case of those addressed in this letter to the Hebrews it was deception to go back to the Levitical priesthood and all its trappings. For the Galatians it was deception to return to a righteousness earned from a religious act. For the modern Christian it is a deception to reject the true gospel for any number of things like the prosperity gospel, the social gospel, or the gospel of universalism. Or the rejection of the true Christ in favor of all these modern distortions of him. In short, a steady diet of solid food keeps our appetite centered on the only true God and the only real Gospel. Nothing else is palatable. Our call is to be healthy Christians and healthy, mature Christians need solid food.

‌Conclusion

I want to offer us one final word in conclusion. It is relatively easy for us who may be considered meat eating Christians to fall into the trap of thanking God that we aren’t like all those other dull Christians who are still young babes living off milk. To consider ourselves perhaps a notch above those less mature than us. I have already mentioned him once, but Sinclair Ferguson had a great podcast episode this week on Isaiah chapter 6. He noted how Isaiah received this vision of the Lord sitting on his throne in the middle of his laments and woes against the waywardness and unfaithfulness of Israel. We might say that Israel was still acting like children, not moving on to the meat of God’s promises, they were certainly deceived.

It is here where the Lord reveals himself to Isaiah and here where he sees the mighty seraphim worshipping the Lord with wings covering their faces. These holy creatures, worshipping in the presence of God cover their faces before the Lord who is Holy, Holy, Holy. And to which Isaiah’s response is “Woe is me, For I am lost!” The one called by God to warn and pronounce judgement is himself humbled to the point of being undone before the presence of the Lord.

I have mentioned this text in Isaiah more than once recently, but I think it is so important for us and bears much repeating. One of the truest marks of Christian maturity and one of the surest fruits of digesting the meat of God’s word is deep and abiding humility. We can poke fun a little at some of the silly stuff that goes on with immature Christians and exclusively milk drinking churches mostly out of our concern for the state of their souls and the souls of those in their charge but at the end of the day we must also recognize that each of us if exposed to the pure glory and holiness of God would be reduced, like Isaiah, to nothing but a puddle of spilt milk.

But by his grace alone he takes away our guilt and removes our sin so that we stand before him blameless. This is not of our own doing or because of our maturity but all by his grace so that if we boast, we boast in him.

From that grace and from that forgiveness then, let us move on to maturity, let us graduate to meat so that we are healthy and well fed, grounded in our God. For our own good? Not for our own good only but so that like Isaiah, after experiencing the depths of his mercy and riches of his grace we too may stand before our holy God in the presence of sinful people who need to hear his word and say, “Here I am, Send me.”

Receiving the free gift of salvation, growing to an appetite for the meat of his word, maintaining complete humility before a holy God, and walking faithfully as he calls, these are the marks of a mature Christian and what I pray we all aspire towards. Amen